The last few days had been a whirlwind. After initially touching down in Cuir, the children (including Max) had been seen and stabilized by Cuir physicians. Nils was seen as well, and patched up. Paisley was informed he would have to remain hospitalized for a week, to recoup from the blood loss.

Paisley had spoken to Liam and they'd both decided that the children in stable condition would be transported to their home eilemaiden, so Paisley had Nils and Max both transferred to Nadar. Her parents and other younger brother, Paydon, both were going to be staying in Nadar as well.

Now that everyone was settled in at the hopsital, Paisley split her time between visiting with Nils and Max (who was barely lucid) and having meetings with her army generals. She'd never felt so harried in her life, having two of the clio she loved most in the world be in the hospital at the same time, and for such horrible reasons. She struggled to keep the war in her thoughts--she would so much rather be with Nils or Max.

She sighed, almost breathlessly as she paused outside of Nils' room for a moment. She'd just rushed back to the hospital after a several hours long meeting. She needed to look uplifting, needed to leave all other thoughts out here in the hallway. She safely boxed up the worries for Max and for Amelia in her mind and walked in.

Nils lay on the bed as he had for days, looking both better and worse, to Paisley. His body was definitely healing--in fact, he was being recommended some walking around now. But mentally...Paisley knew he was struggling. Paisley had called Henri to the hospital as soon as she could, knowing that he could probably help Nils through this more than she could. He must have left for lunch or something, though, because he was not in the room.

"Hi," she said quietly, a smile on her face as she entered the room. "Did Henri leave?" She walked over and sat in the chair next to the bed.

Around the time that Cuir had shown up in Deilig was around the time that Nils' memory of the day had started to go fuzzy. He must have passed out in the airship, because he didn't remember the journey to Cuir at all. The next thing he knew he was in a Cuir hospital, stitched and bandaged up, weak but stabilized and out of danger. As soon as the doctors okayed him to be moved, he was taken back to Nadar with Paisley and Max.

Henri surprised Nils by showing up at the hospital. They hugged and talked and Nils cried. He was worried Henri might be angry with him for doing something so dangerous without him, but Henri only said he was proud. They also talked about Petra, who had pretty much disappeared after the mission. She'd apparently told the Cuir forces to fuck off when they asked to interview her, and left the same day. Wherever she'd gone, she hadn't come back to Nadar.

The image of the dead and captive kids had burned itself into Nils' mind, where it melded together with other, older memories of dead and captive kids. He saw it a lot in his dreams too, so he avoided sleep as much as he could. Tanith kept saying he needed to sleep in order to heal faster, but even when he did sleep he woke up every couple hours in a cold sweat. He wondered if the doctors had something that could help him sleep without dreaming, but he didn't want to tell them that he needed it because of nightmares. He hated how much of a child he could be, sometimes.

He was staring out the windows, seeing that image of the kids again, when Paisley walked in. He looked over and gave her a small smile. He didn't want her to worry about him, when she needed to be worrying about her brother. "Yeah, he went to get us food," Nils replied. He wasn't hungry at all. In fact he felt like he might get sick if he ate. "How's Max doing?"

"He's doing okay. They've got him sleeping right now." It meant so much to her that Nils really cared about Max, and wanted to make sure Paisley was okay too. She put her hand on top of Nils'.

"I was so worried about you, you know?" she said quietly. She'd been trying to give Henri as much time with Nils as she could, so she hadn't had a lot of alone time with him yet. She wished she could sit here for hours with him, uninterrupted.

"How are you feeling?" She wished she knew what to ask. Her words seemed so flat and she hated it. She knew he had to be having flashbacks of his childhood, but she didn't know how to help him.

Nils turned his hand over and took Paisley's, squeezing it gently. "Sorry. I didn't mean to make you worry," he said, looking down. If he hadn't frozen up during the mission and gotten himself hurt, Paisley would have at least one less thing to worry about. He knew how overwhelmed she must be right now.

He forced himself to smile at her again. "I'm okay though. This isn't the first time I've been stabbed." He realized how bad that sounded as soon as he said it. "I mean, uh. The doctor said I should heal up just fine. That guard missed any vital spots." He put his free hand on his side, where he could feel the bandage under his hospital clothes. The wound still hurt, but not as bad as it had. It itched more than anything now. That meant it was healing, the nurse had told him.

He knew when she'd asked how he was feeling that she meant more than just physically, but he didn't want to make her worry even more than she already was. She didn't need to know about the nightmares and intrusive thoughts.

"Don't say sorry! You were amazing! We couldn't have saved them without you, you know," she said truthfully. "I love you so much. I'm so thankful for you coming into my life." She squeezed his hand back. "What would I do without you?" If she wasn't worried about Henri coming back, she would climb carefully into Nils' bed and lay next to him.

"I want to know how you're really feeling," she pressed. She didn't want to make him uncomfortable, but she wanted to make sure he got the help he needed. All of it, and not just for his stab wound. "I love you, let me help you."

Nils smiled for real this time, even though it was smaller than his fake one. No matter what Paisley or Henri said, he wasn't quite ready yet to let himself feel proud for something. But sometimes, the two of them feeling proud of him for something was enough. "You've done more for me than I could ever do for you," he told her. Before meeting her, Henri had been his only reason to live. Now he had a reason to enjoy living.

Paisley wrote:"I want to know how you're really feeling,"

Nils looked away, out the window next to his bed. He wished he could just lie and tell Paisley he was feeling totally fine, no nightmares, no flashbacks. But he was such a terrible liar, and he'd feel awful lying to Paisley anyways. "I, um." He swallowed. "It's kinda hard. Seeing those kids, it was like...being back there, again." He looked at Paisley sadly. "It's like I never really escaped, you know?"

No matter how much Paisley loved him, there was nothing she could do that could erase his past. All she could do was be supportive and try to help him get through it.

"I'm sorry," she told him softly. The last thing she wanted was for him to recede back into himself. She wanted to say she shouldn't have brought him, should have thought that it might resurface old nightmares...but she knew if she even brought that up it would make Nils feel even worse.

"I was talking to some of the doctors that are treating Max and the other kids... They were talking about how the kids might need a little help, to help them deal with what they've been through. There is a therapist here in Nadar that deals with trauma, and so I was talking to my mom about setting Max up with a few appointments, you know, after he wakes up.

"Do you think something like that would help you? I know it's not the same thing, but I just thought, maybe, if it was something you'd be interested in..." She didn't want to seem like she thought he was damaged or needing fixing, and she hoped she didn't come off like that.

Nils felt a sinking feeling as Paisley went on and he realized where she was going with this line of conversation. Going to therapy seemed like giving into his weakness somehow, and needing help getting over something that Henri and Petra seemed to cope with on their own just made him feel ashamed. Which was strange, because he didn't feel like it was shameful at all for Max or any of those other kids to need it. It just was for him, personally.

He looked at Paisley. She was looking at him so sadly, but with love in her eyes too. He knew that despite everything, she really did love him just as much as he loved her. She wouldn't suggest something like this to make him feel bad, or to change who he was. She would only suggest it if she thought it would make him happy.

"Do you really think that would work?" he asked her. On top of his other reservations, the idea of talking about his past to a stranger was also terrifying. He briefly wondered if Paisley would go with him, but then realized that some of the things he would have to talk about he never, ever wanted her to hear.

"I think it would," Paisley told him honestly. "And if you don't like it, or you think it isn't helping you, you could stop."

She decided she didn't care if Henri walked in or not, she climbed gingerly into bed with Nils (on the opposite side of his wound) and rested her head on his shoulder, snuggling up to him. "I can go with you, if you want. Until you get comfortable. Or if you don't want me to, that's okay too. I can wait for you outside."

Nils put his arm around Paisley as she cuddled up next to him and rested his head on hers. She was so, so good to him. "If you really think so," he said, "then I'll do it." Paisley had never steered him wrong before. She had saved his and Henri's lives, taken him in, taught him how to garden, made him feel like someone worth being. If she thought this was something that could make him better, then he owed it to her to at least try.

He wished the two of them could just stay cuddled up together forever, but he knew Paisley had so many things to do right now. And she would definitely need to leave when Max woke up. With a twinge of guilt, he suddenly thought of how hard this must all be for her, too. She'd had to watch clio die in front of her. She'd seen all those dead kids too, and had briefly had to live with the fear that her own brother could be one of them. And on top of it all, she was leading Nadar through a war.

"I will be," Paisley said with a quiet confidence. "It's hard right now, but you're going to be okay, Max is going to be okay... I even have faith that the war is going to pan out. I just...I just want it to happen faster than I know it's all going to, you know?"

She traced random designs on the back of one of Nils' hands. "I can't wait for you to come home with me. I miss you."

Nils believed Paisley when she said she would be okay once the war was over with. He, too, wished it could end faster. He wished he could do something more to help, but war and politics was beyond him. All he could do was be there for Paisley, the way she was always there for him.

"I can't wait either," Nils said, leaning over and kissing Paisley on her temple. After the war, things would go back to normal. They'd garden together, and have dinner with Paisley's family. He sighed and absent-mindedly poked at the bandage over his wound again. If he hadn't gotten himself hurt, he'd be home right now.

Paisley and Nils talked quietly together for a few more minutes, snuggling closely to make up for the time they were going to have to be apart. Eventually she left so she could go spend some quality time with her parents who were sitting at Max's bedside.